One of many many benefits of being in house is having a front-row seat to probably the most anticipated cosmic occasions.
NASA astronaut Don Pettit, flight engineer for the Expedition 72 crew, proved that when he witnessed Comet ATLAS from the Worldwide Area Station, orbiting 250 miles above Earth. The comet, formally often known as C/2024 G3, began the week making its closest strategy to the solar, and a few astronomers are predicting it will go down because the brightest comet of the 12 months.
Pettit pointed a digicam towards one of many house station’s home windows and caught the comet because it paid the astronauts a go to.
“It is totally amazing to see a comet from orbit,” he mentioned on X, previously often known as Twitter.
Proper now Comet ATLAS seems within the constellation Sagittarius, and although it might look too shut for consolation in Pettit’s picture, it is really some 87 million miles from Earth. Daylight tends to scrub out such objects as they sidle as much as the star, however this one will be seen at daybreak or nightfall, its personal brightness rivaling that of Venus, in accordance with a NASA publish.
Mashable Mild Velocity
NASA astronaut Don Pettit shares a photograph of Comet ATLAS that he took from a window of the Worldwide Area Station.
Credit score: Don Pettit / NASA
Comets are monumental balls of ice, mud, and rock that fashioned within the outer photo voltaic system, left over from the early days of planet formation about 4.6 billion years in the past. Their ice begins to disintegrate as they get nearer to the solar, changing immediately from a strong to a gasoline, skipping over the liquid section. That course of creates their signature tails, millions-of-miles-long trails of particles.
Tons of of years in the past, folks thought of comets unhealthy omens. At present, scientists know these icy our bodies as time capsules of the traditional photo voltaic system. Some astronomers imagine comets introduced water and natural compounds — aka the constructing blocks of life — to early Earth.
As 2024 got here to an in depth, the tally of recognized comets had risen to about 4,000. Astronomers say numerous others are seemingly orbiting the solar past Neptune in a disk often known as the Kuiper Belt, or on the outer fringe of the photo voltaic system, in the so-called Oort Cloud, about 50 instances farther from the solar.
NASA astronaut Don Pettit makes use of a digicam on the Worldwide Area Station.
Credit score: NASA
The Oort Cloud is regarded as a sphere of historical, icy objects surrounding the photo voltaic system. Comets there are generally dislodged by the gravity of one other object, redirecting them towards the solar. This distant realm is the place astronomers imagine Comet ATLAS, found final April, originated. If it survives its shut encounter with the solar, the comet could return in about 160,000 years.
Catching a glimpse of the comet anyplace north of the equator is extraordinarily difficult, however for the Southern Hemisphere, stargazers could have an opportunity to see it above the western horizon shortly after sundown. This might proceed from mid-January via the remainder of the month.
As Comet ATLAS exits the solar’s intense glare over the following day or two, it may grow to be simpler to identify. Warning: By no means stare within the course of the solar with out protecting eyewear.
“There is hope that Comet ATLAS will survive its close pass near the Sun and remain bright enough to be seen with the unaided eye over the next few days,” NASA mentioned.
